I think it's about traditions, quality and love for photography. Why painters paint, when they can do the same with a tablet and photoshop?
I think it's about traditions, quality and love for photography. Why painters paint, when they can do the same with a tablet and photoshop?
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Texture.Originally Posted by shOo
This is a great discussion!
It's the same question I've been asking myself: "Should I get into LF?" and "why?". The following are my current thoughts...
In my totally amateur photography journey I started at 35mm film, then moved to crop sensor digital 4 years ago, and now I I'm thinking I want the LF 'extra detail', especially for landscapes.
I was recently in Arches NP, and got a nice panorama with good depth of detail of Delicate Arch in it by stitching 5-7 10mp frames together. I'm specifically wanting more resolution/detail in larger Landscape prints - 20x30 or 18x36.
From what I've been recently reading, a scan of 4x5 LF photo can give around a 150 Megapixel resolution. I have read an opinion that stitching 12 digital frames together for the same result is another route to this goal (which that person prefers). But some of the sunrise/sunset pictures I take have had quick enough changing atmospheric conditions so before I could do 12 digital frames, it has become a different shot. I've also run into other complications in the stitching.
The perspective control and the whole "LF experience" including the non-digital darkroom process will all be totally new and does make me somewhat hesitant. I can see that some of the 'manual' aspects, like needing to do more careful composition and 'shot-setup' may greatly improve my somewhat lazy current digital shooting habits and improve my skills. So I've been deciding what I need to get started (and gotten some great advice on this forum), and will be probably taking the plunge here shortly with some starter camera.
Jay, in many cases yes, but I wasn't giving an example for only oil paintings. Watercolor doesn't have texture, except for the paper itself. But you know what I ment
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Texture was just one example of a quality an inkjet print can't duplicate. The same could be said for the relief of a carbon print. My point is that I don't think it's about tradition, quality, or the love of photography. Working backwards from the love of photography; digital photography is photography. If you'd said, the love of film processing, you'd have a point, but digital photography shares every other aspect with film photography. As I mentioned earlier, many photographers here scan their film and make digital prints, and this is becoming more common every day. Others use digital negatives to make contact prints in a dark room. Both groups claim to be photographers. How much does digital capture impinge on their claims? Not at all, in my opinion. These photographers can claim to love photography just as much as those who expose and process film do. As for quality, I won't try to argue that theoretically and quantitatively, because I think it's a red herring. I don't think the very best work done with film is better than the very best work done with digital, and I don't think the majority of the work done with film is better than the majority of work done with digital. The choice between film or digital capture is way down on the list of factors that affect the quality of the final image. Tradition is more interesting. There might be photographers who use film because they feel it connects them with the tradition of photography; the great photographers of the past used film, and so they do too. etc. But as the great photographers of the present ever more frequently use digital equipment, that tradition becomes nostalgia, and sentimentality. For me, tradition has nothing to do with my use of film. For me, inertia is more accurate. I have all of this film equipment, and I've invested so much in learning to use it, and to understanding film, paper, and the related processes, switching to digital represents many setbacks I'm not eager to embrace. For digital to become a practically attractive option, film would have to become very expensive, or unavailable.
Beyond all this, though, is my enjoyment in the process of using film. Film is fun! Maybe digital is fun, too; I don't know. When circumstances eventually favor my use of digital, I know I'll miss film, but I won't miss photography. Part of me looks forward to the new challenges and opportunities digital photography represents, while another part regrets the inevitable demise of my beloved dark room, not for any reasons of tradition, quality, or love of photography, but for my enjoyment of the time I spend there.
Well, then we have different opinions.
As for love of film processing, I can't say I agree with that. I started taking photographs when digital photography was already available. Though my first camera was a film camera. I switched to digital, now I am shooting only film again. And I don't like processing film, though I enjoy the process that I have to think more carefully about taking a picture, waiting to receive the developed film from the lab to see the results. And even though all of my color prints are made from digital files, I prefer the scanned images to digital ones. I don't know, there is something in it, that I call quality. It's not sharpness or lack of noise, but it's different. Maybe it's different because I don't have the photoshop skills to match my digital photographs to film, but I just prefer film.
And for me film photography is different than digital photography, though as you said people who shoots with digital or film cameras are both photographers.
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I came across this thread today after an absence of years from the forum (as well as large format photography). I am making a return to architectural work, and will be getting back into sheet film as well as soon as I can afford to do so. This thread gave me the good food for thought I came looking for.
I missed this place.
For me it's all about the quality. Small-format digital wasn't giving me the look I wanted in prints above 16x20 or so. (I was shooting with Nikon DSLRs as well as the Leica M9.)
Also, as my photographic style changed a bit perspective control became more important.
To get what I want with a digital system (the ability to print very large, camera movements and the 4x5 aspect ratio). I'd be looking at a high-end digital back on an expensive technical camera like an Alpa. Add some good digital lenses and we'd easily be in the $30k range.
For less than the price of a good DSLR, I've built a pretty good 4x5 kit.
The 40x50 prints look incredible. Even the smaller prints have a tonality and depth that can't be matched by small-format digital.
And yes, I do like the process and tactile nature of shooting with a view camera. The camera feels more like a tool than a toy. But that is secondary. The image quality is the primary concern for me.
We are a transitional generation. In my lifetime a negative made with a view camera and a technician that had set the levels was considered truthful to the point that if you had some known references in the view, you could put a ruler on an enlargement and believe every measurement without further question. WYSIWYG! Kodak even continued to make glass plates for the scientific community that needed to prove to the nth that the sensor plane was perfectly flat.
So now we shoot with a 24MP camera and straighten things up in photoshop? There is a difference, and it will be obvious to anyone with a mathematical mind. Like I say, we're the generation making the transition, so my brain still tells me, it's a picture, believe it, then later on it might say, but we've got photo shop now.
Bottom line is, if you're making a living, you give your customer what they want. Still nice to be old school enough that if they wanted work as it was done in 1965, you could go and do it.........for a price.
Same here, that's why I,m considering dumping all my 8x10 and 4x5 gear.I can easily surpass my 8x10 Epson scans with 5D mark II stitching, and just can not afford drum scans.I'm finding it very hard though to actually start listing the gear for sale.
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